Another New Britain Catholic School To Close

Saint John Paul II School in New Britain falls victim to low enrollments and rising costs

NEW BRITAIN — Nine years after merging three struggling parochial schools into one, the Archdiocese of Hartford has announced that the combined operation, Saint John Paul II School, will shut down this summer.

The prekindergarten-to-eighth-grade school on Farmington Avenue will close after classes end in June, the archdiocese said.

"The sponsoring parish, Holy Cross, is no longer able to sustain its school," according to a statement distributed by the archdiocese late Thursday night. "After substantial, careful consultation with parish and school constituent groups, the pastor of the parish school made the decision to close the school at the conclusion of the current academic year."

After Saint John Paul II School closes, New Britain will have just one archdiocesan Catholic elementary school left: Sacred Heart.

The shutdown is the most recent in a decades-long series of consolidations and closures of Catholic schools across the country. The trend is largely fueled by declining enrollment and rising costs.

Closing Saint John Paul II School ends a Catholic education program that began — in limited fashion — when the Holy Cross Church was founded in 1928.

The Office of Catholic Schools will offer $500 in aid to Saint John Paul II students who transfer to another Catholic school within the archdiocese, said Dale R. Hoyt, the archdiocese's schools superintendent. He said the neighboring Sacred Heart parish is also offering another $500 toward tuition for Saint John Paul II students who transfer there.

The Holy Cross School opened 61 years ago, but its tradition dates back further. Eight nuns taught Polish and religion to hundreds of youngsters after regular school hours starting when the Holy Cross Church first opened, according to the church's records. The full-scale parish school was built in 1954 and was so successful that a 20-classroom addition went up just seven years later.

The church said enrollment peaked at 790 in 1965. By 2006, enrollment had dropped so badly in New Britain's Catholic schools that the St. Francis of Assisi and St. Joseph elementary schools were merged with Holy Cross in the former Holy Cross building and renamed the Pope John Paul II Catholic School.

The new school was later renamed Saint John Paul II. Despite concentrating the staff, faculty and students of all three former schools, it encountered difficulties within its first decade.

"The continuing financial commitment to Catholic education has not been easy for Holy Cross Parish," according to its website. "Subsidizing the parish school has become a major challenge yet the school's reputation for excellence was affirmed by four successful accreditations under the direction of The New England Association of Schools and Colleges and the Archdiocese of Hartford."